Well… there’s definitely been a recurring theme of reading about superheroes lately, and as this looked to be a short read (it is), and about superheroes (it is), with a sexy looking superheroine (or super villian?) on the cover (there is and she is!) I thought, ‘why not toss it in to my mix of reading materials?’
Surprise!
There is a strong element of super-hero-ness to this. Zola Noite is a superhero by the name of The Watcher. I’m not quite sure what her super power is, with a name like that, but she is not afraid to mix in when the fighting gets going. Unfortunately, The Watcher retired after having to watch her partner being brutally murdered while she lay helpless. To get her through the pain of this, Zola sees super-hero physchologist Dr. Arturo Forte, aka ‘Fort.’ There’s something going on between Fort and Zola…something inappropriate, and steamy, despite the doctor/patient relationship. But even a little romance doesn’t get her out of her deep funk.
What does get her roaring again, is the need to stave off an attack by three of her most arch nemeses who have escaped from prison. She fights recklessly, and …well… you’d have to read the book to understand what happens when she faces these three villians.
What doesn’t happen is ‘buy in.’ There isn’t much for us to get excited about. We’re supposed to identify or support Zola, the heroine of the tale, but mostly all she does is mope about and fret over her feelings for Forte. I’m a novice to the romance genre… is this typical romance behavior?
Most of the time I felt as though I were reading a classic YA novel (see my review of The Huaca for ‘classic YA’) … that constant sense of struggle to get through the day because everything is falling apart and no one understands and there’s a really cute guy that is too dangerous to like but she does anyway… but then there’s the sex scenario, which completely takes this book out of the YA range (that, or I need to have a better understanding of the books my 17 year old daughter is reading!)
So…it reads as a YA book, but with too much sex for YA; not enough sex or action for a romance; and a super hero who’s retired and her power is ‘watching.’ What that sums up to, I think, is a book that doesn’t quite hit the right marks.
Looking for a good book? This one doesn’t quite make the grade.
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To The 5th Power (Powers Trilogy #1)
author: Shirin Dubbin
publisher: Entangled: Ever After
ISBN: 162266180X
ebook, 122 pages
Looking For a Good Book 